July 19, 2015

The answer to the question “what is money?” has changed throughout history. During the gold standard era, money was seen as gold or silver (the theory known as bullionism). In the early 20th century, the alternative theory known as chartalism proposed that money was a token chosen by the state for payment of taxes. Today, many economists take an agnostic line, and argue that money is best defined in terms of its function, e.g. as a neutral medium of exchange. This paper argues that none of these approaches adequately describe the nature of money, and proposes a new theory, inspired by non-Newtonian physics, which takes into account the dualistic real/virtual properties and complex nature of money. The theory is applied to the example of the emergence of cybercurrencies.

July 11, 2015

Readers of this column, no doubt concerned for my wellbeing, have occasionally asked how my book Economyths – a critique of mainstream economics from the point of view of an applied mathematician – was received by economists.

The book, which also served as the basis for many Econoclast articles, did muster a number of positive reviews, from publications ranging from Bloomberg to Handelsblatt. The science writer Brian Clegg called it “probably one of the most important books I’ve ever read” (he’s not an economist, I just wanted to mention it, before we go on). Perhaps the strongest endorsement was from Czech economist Tomas Sedlacek, who co-wrote a subsequent book with me.